Why not create a national bank instead of taking an existing one? It can purchases the bad loans, etc from banks and reorganizes institutions as needed as they do now when banks fail. And then shareholders won't be bent over, nor will they be driven by fear that shar prices will go to 0.

5:37 pm January 23, 2009

Use Your Common Sense wrote :

Why there are so many people so hung up on ideology? Let's be practical and use common sense to solve this real problem. The amount of TARP money needed to keep Citibank and BOA solvent far exceeded their market capitalization. Technically speaking, these banks are insolvent. The US government should put taxpayers first and nationalized these banks. In this case, no further TARP money (taxpayer money) is needed. The balance sheets of the banks will be restructured. When the real estate market recovers, the US government can file for IPO and use the capital raised to pay down the deficit.

5:42 pm January 23, 2009

Retired investors wrote :

We invested in banks for dividends since we're retired.
Now we won't buy more banks stock even tho dividend is great.
Is it a given that shares will go to zero dollars if government nationalizes the bank?

5:50 pm January 23, 2009

Retired investors wrote :

If BAC was insolvent how could it have bought Merrill Lynch. I think BAC was okay before that acquisition

8:44 pm January 23, 2009

angry wrote :

these banks should be nationalized. Even if the private equity or investment is scared off who cares. You will still make more money by not paying executives billions of dollars a year. It is just a big money making scheme where the top (e-band) executives take most of the profits. Even that kind of pay does not help performance. Look at all the big banks.. next up GE... They are so full of themselves..

10:13 pm January 23, 2009

bank worker wrote :

what happens to the employee's do they become goverment workers?

11:11 pm January 23, 2009

also retired folks wrote :

We inherited bank stock (it had been in the family since l850!) and now we are so sad because we think we must sell it all off just to be safe. We have lived on the dividends for years and had hoped to pass it on to the children and grandchildren. We thought we could college-educate all of the grandchildren with no problem. Now we wonder if we will even be able to afford to stay in our wonderful home.

Will the dividends and the shares go to "zip" if the banks are nationalized? Please tell us, if you know and understand this concern. Thanks!

9:04 am January 24, 2009

ConsDemo wrote :

"Angry" and "Your Common Sense", be careful what you wish for. A temporary nationalization to reconstitute specific banks or the banking system may be justified. What we don't want is a permanent nationalization where the banking system becomes entirely politicized and politicians began steering capital to their favorite causes. If that happens, welcome to the third world, no thanks. Nationalization should happen only after every thing else is tried and there should be some way to make sure it is temporary.

10:55 am January 24, 2009

Agree with ConsDemo wrote :

Agree with ConsDemo...do you really want the government in control of your bank. Oh yeah, it will happen...once it happens to C or BAC, it will continue to move to other banks too. How convenient, IRS can easily dip in then and the government can easily take what they want from you...no goverment control with my banking..plus, a huge swatch of us have bought these stocks and have alot of our lives in them, I'd rather not become finacially bankrupt by doing what I've been taught to do and trying to prepare for retirement....nationalization will wipe out all shareholders completely!

11:49 am January 24, 2009

gee wrote :

BAD IDEA
BANKS WILL EVENTUALLY WORK THEIR WAY OUT OF THIS MESS.

5:29 pm January 24, 2009

ted wrote :

What, if anything, does market capitalization have to do with operating a bank or any company? Even if a company's common equity goes to zero, all tht means is that the company owners don't have any equity in the company. Still, the bank, or whatever company, would keep on operating.

7:49 pm January 24, 2009

EtTu wrote :

Until such time as CEO's are sent to jail for their (mistakes?). The time as come for settlements with the SEC and other governmental agencies to drop the (pay the fine without admitting wrong doing). It is time for CEO's to at least receive the same sentences as some one who steals a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk. It seams to me that if CEO's want to be paid millions they also must be held to much higher standards of conduct, honesty and truhfulness.

8:39 pm January 24, 2009

cramer wrote :

banks who able to survive in this difficult time, in future those banks will get bigger and bigger, more profits for then

8:42 pm January 24, 2009

gkmcwilliams wrote :

I am a retired banker.There is a dersire to natioalize the banking system. There is a system inplace that can handle this condition. It is called the the Federal Reserver System & the FDIC. If the government takes over certain or all of the banks it will be the end of the life we have given to the banking world for many years. If the government washes out the common shareholder the government is saying that equity capital is no good. I agree that is true in certion contitions. Remember that the only banks to pick up the problems of the the S&L & the Investment Banks has been the Commercial Banks!! It apperas that they have been pushed to step forward to help out the situation.
BAC did not not have the time study this sitituation. JPM & WFC ( Commercial Banks) Steped up & helped out also to take over financial instutions that might fail & save Big Dollars for the U S Government

9:02 pm January 24, 2009

gkmcwilliams wrote :

The FDIC & the Federal Reserve are the the ansewer to Nationalize of the banking system. If the government natioalizes the banking system it will be the end to the commercial banking system as we know it today & maybe other segements of our ecomony. Let the Fed Reserve handle the banking stituation that we face. We do not need the good bank bad bank approach.

2:38 am January 25, 2009

greedy CEO wrote :

It's a problem to bailout BAC or JPM. It's a question whether such bailout will build the confidence in these rubbishes. They are all insolvency and bankrupt for dozens of times. If you are president, you have no choice but to bail out them even he knows there is no such hope.

7:38 pm January 25, 2009

Dr No wrote :

Perhaps me might consider the unthinkable. Let's get the government as far away from the financial sector as possible. The banking crisis is a product of government intervention--through monetary policy, legislation, and regulation. Only freeing the banking system from the clutches of government can save it. Nationalization will only deliver the death blow.

10:16 pm January 25, 2009

DaveyNC wrote :

Right now, the feds are making things worse by dithering about. In the words of Yoda, it is time to "Do, or do not."

I'd like to see them go bankrupt or otherwise be left to their own devices to sort it out. Failing that, I like the first comment, above, regarding the formation of a national bank to take the junk off the banks' balance sheets, which is what TARP was supposed to do at first, was it not? In return for doing that, the banks should agree to accept government imposed profit limits with any profit over that amount going to reimburse the government for losses in the junk. That sort of profit limit is much the same way that regulated utilities are governed by state governments. Some sort of financial penalty over and above that amount should be imposed, as well.

Government bails out the losers, doesn't nationalize the rescued banks thereby not affecting other non-rescued banks and maybe, just maybe, this whole mess breaks even some day. In the distant future.

6:58 pm January 26, 2009

Tom L-Colorado wrote :

OK. So nationalization would put the U. S. Government in charge of some of out largest banks. These would be the same folks who took over the operation of the Mustang Ranch in Nevada and drove it into bankruptcy. This means that we would be turning over the operation of our largest financial institutions to those who can't even make a go of a business selling sex and booze. Why am I concerned?

12:29 am January 27, 2009

TimR wrote :

It is incredible that we are seriously talking about nationalizing the American banking system and turning the US into a socialist economy.

We will be condemning ourselves to socialism and the terrible future it promises.

I can only hope this will not happen.

1:34 pm January 30, 2009

Leonard Clark wrote :

Yeah right, you three piece suited, slick-back haired con-artists dole out bonuses to yourselves while the American worker and their families suffer! You have no sympathy from me, it is you and this whole free-market lie that is weakening the freedom of America and for that matter all human beings.
Leonard Clark

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